An Overview:
This first volume of Maud’s journals covers her life from ages fourteen through thirty-five. She starts as a school girl (not above school yard spats and secret indulgences in novels during lesson time); studies at Prince of Wales College and Dalhousie University; teaches three years in different communities in Prince Edward Island, works one year as a copyeditor at a Nova Scotia newspaper; experiences six* proposals, two engagements, and one secret love affair; and spends more than a decade as her grandmother’s companion and caretaker, all the while reading, writing, and dreaming of the literary life.
There are countless directions I could take this post, but for the sake of true discussion, I wanted to comment on a few things that struck me and raise questions to those of you who have also read. You’ll see I’ve had so much to say I’ve decided to run a second discussion post on Wednesday and a more quotes I found interesting on Friday. I invite readers to take us anywhere you’d like in the comments below. 
The Literary Life:
All my life is has been my aim to write a book — a “real live” book… Well, I’ve written my book. The dream dreamed years ago in that old brown desk in school has come true at last after years of toil and struggle. And the realization is sweet — almost as sweet as the dream!
Maud’s first novel, ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, sold to L.C. Page and Co., the fifth publishing house she submitted to. While on the surface, this looks like an easy thing, she had been tirelessly writing, submitting, and selling short stories and poems for over fifteen years. Writing had become a daily part of her life, as had a faithful study of the magazine market.
Blessings be on the inventors of the alphabet, pen and printing press! Life would be — to me in all events — a terrible thing without books.
As well as writing, Maud read broadly and deeply. She often re-read childhood favorites, studying to see if they held up as the years passed but also refusing to let popular opinion sway her preferences. She compared author’s newer works to their older titles, pursued the bestsellers and the classics, and collected phrases that spoke to her (reminding me of my commonplace book).
After selling ANNE in 1907, she quickly went on to sell the sequel, ANNE OF AVONLEA, KILMENY OF THE ORCHARD (a story re-worked story that had previously run as a magazine serial), and THE STORY GIRL (her personal favorite).
The road of literature is at first a very slow one…and I mean to work patiently on until I win — as I believe I shall, sooner or later — recognition and success.
Wednesday’s discussion will focus on the two lives Maud often felt she lived and the process of recording a life through journaling.
*Have I forgotten someone or accidentally added someone else in? Mr. Mustard, Lem, Lou, Edwin, Ewan, Oliver.
*Have I forgotten someone or accidentally added someone else in? Mr. Mustard, Lem, Lou, Edwin, Ewan, Oliver.
It was SO encouraging to read Maud struggle with the same things about writing that I struggle with! Her description of rediscovering Anne and sending it to Page after having set it aside–her examples of the other rejecting and their “damning with faint praise”–definitely gave me courage to keep going on my stories that have been rejected.
And it amazed me that, even in her private journals, she never seemed to consider giving up…as I do often enough in the face of rejection.
I’m away from home and only have my phone with me. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always let me comment; happily, I’ve finally gotten in!
There is a solidarity in seeing authors we love struggle with and yearn for the same things we do. I must say I’m the opposite in the “faint praise” dept: throw me a bit, and I’ll cling to it. Of the eleven years I subbed directly to editors, my husband often said he couldn’t believe how much encouragement I could milk from rejections with faint praise. I could tell you specific editors I still admire from their bits of kindness shown me. Those words were enough to fuel me to continue.
I’ve only read the first 150 pages but she’s already so earnest about her love of writing and reading, her dedication to it, that I can only imagine how she delves more deeply into this literary life. I look forward to reading more : )
So glad you’re enjoying this, Melissa! There are some quotes coming in Friday’s post that show her devotion to her craft I’m sure you’ll appreciate. One talks about how all of life somehow points back to bettering her work. It’s something that rings true to me: in reading, in looking out the window, in conversation, in all things I look to see how to capture, explore, or explain. It is a very basic, deep drive, and kind of connects to Faith’s comment above: it becomes so deeply ingrained, there is no way to give up.
One of the most heart-wrenching, prevalent themes for me throughout this volume is the pre-feminist position that makes things more difficult for her. I don’t have the reference, but more than once she mentions the wish for her own home and garden. I get the feeling she would have chosen that life a million times over a less-than passionate marriage. She is so often lonely and depressed – especially through the winter – as she has to live with her grandmother. And she says, “There are times when I hate life! Other times again when I love it fiercely with an agonized realization of how beautiful I could make it if I had only half a chance.”(p329) She was able to write such happiness and “fullness of life” into her books. I hate for her that she was not able to make it happen for herself.
Yes. So few options open to her (even simple things like establishing her own bedtime in her 30s, for goodness sake!) coupled with her lonliness and difference (the two selves I’ll talk about Wednesday) certainly deepened her depression. I think she would have been happier alone…but I hesitate to fully wonder about such a change. It feels like it’s not my place, like I’m tinkering in her life somehow. But I’m there with you, Serenity.
Would she have read Virginia Woolf, I wonder? When was A Room of One’s Own published? Later? At any rate, there is a similar yearning, for sure.